Amasya ulemâsından İmâdeddîn Ömer Çelebi bin Mecdeddîn Abdulmecîd Çelebi bin eş-Şeyh Küpeli Mü’eyyed Çelebi ya’nî Ebû İshâk Kazerûnî mahdûmu ve kaz’asker Muhyiddîn Mehmed Efendi’nin yeğenidir. Amcasından tahsîl ederek müderris ve amcasına tezkireci, ba’dehû sahn-ı semâniyye müderrisi oldu.
Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî cülûsunda Edirne kadısı olup 888’de ma’zûlen İstanbul’a geldi. 889’da Amasya’ya i’zâm edilip 893’de Amasya’da vefât etdi. Meşâhîr-i ulemâdan idi. Bu da şehzâde Sultân Cem tarafdârlığıyla ithâm edilmişdi. [392]
In Modern English
He was the son of İmâdeddîn Ömer Çelebi, one of the scholars of Amasya; İmâdeddîn Ömer Çelebi was the son of Mecdeddîn Abdülmecîd Çelebi, and he in turn the son of eş-Şeyh Küpeli Müeyyed Çelebi, also called Ebû İshâk Kâzerûnî. He was the nephew of the kazasker Muhyiddîn Mehmed Efendi. Reading under his uncle, he became a müderris; he became his uncle's tezkireci (the clerk who ran his correspondence), and then müderris of the Sahn-ı Semân.
At the accession of Sultan Bayezid II he became kadı of Edirne; in 888 [1483] he was removed from office and came to Istanbul. In 889 [1484] he was sent to Amasya, and in 893 [1488] he died in Amasya. He was among the well-known scholars. This man too had been accused of supporting Prince Cem Sultan.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- mahdûm: son
- kaz'asker: kazasker, the highest judicial office of the learned hierarchy after the kadıs
- tezkireci: the clerk who runs the correspondence and affairs of a high state official
- sahn-ı semâniyye: Sahn-ı Semân, the eight high madrasas of the Fatih Complex
- ma'zûlen: having been dismissed from office
- i'zâm etmek: to send
- ithâm: accusation
- tarafdârlık: partisanship, taking someone's side
Küpelioğlu Muhyiddin Mehmed
The kazasker Muhyiddin Mehmed, uncle and teacher of the subject of the entry, is one of the well-known scholars of Mehmed the Conqueror's time. In Taşköprülüzâde's eş-Şakâ'iku'n-nu'mâniyye he is mentioned as "Mevlânâ Muhyiddin Mehmed, famous as Küpelioğlu"; he had studied under the scholars of his time, was known for his virtue, was made kazasker by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, and on the return from the Karaman campaign in 872 [1467-68] was dismissed together with Grand Vizier Mahmud Pasha. According to Mehmed Süreyya's Sicill-i Osmânî, he became kazasker in 867 [1462-63], was dismissed in 872, and died in 874 [1469-70]. Hüsameddin conveys this information in another entry of his work.
The family's most striking link is its kinship with Kemalpaşazâde. According to what Hüsameddin conveys from the Şakâ'ik, Muhyiddin Mehmed had two sisters; Sinan Pasha married one, and Kemal Paşazâde Süleyman Çelebi the other, and the famous şeyhülislam Kemalpaşazâde Ahmed Şemseddin Efendi was born of this second marriage. The current encyclopedia entry on Kemalpaşazâde, however, shows his mother as the daughter of Küpelioğlu Muhyiddin Mehmed, one of the kazaskers of Mehmed the Conqueror's time, who came from Iran and settled in Tokat. Whichever account is correct, the subject of the entry, Ahmed Çelebi, is a close relative of Kemalpaşazâde: according to the first account Kemalpaşazâde is the son of Ahmed Çelebi's paternal aunt; according to the second, Ahmed Çelebi is a first cousin of Kemalpaşazâde's mother.
The sources also disagree on the family's origin. While the encyclopedia entry introduces Küpelioğlu as someone who came from Iran and settled in Tokat, Hüsameddin counts the family as from Amasya. An inconsistency is also noticeable in Hüsameddin's own work: while in this entry he shows Mecdeddin Abdülmecid as the son of Küpeli Müeyyed Çelebi, in the entry devoted to Mecdeddin he introduces him as the son of the Şeyhülislam Abdülkerim Çelebi bin Abdülcebbâr el-Kâdirî and writes that he saw his signature as kadı of Edirne in 845 [1441-42].
Küpeli Müeyyed Çelebi and the Kâzerûniyye
The name Müeyyed Çelebi, whom Hüsameddin mentions with the epithet "Ebû İshâk Kâzerûnî," points to the Kâzerûniyye order circle in Amasya. The Kâzerûniyye is the order founded in Iran by Ebû İshak Kâzerûnî (d. 426/1035); among the Ottomans, the İshâkıyye (Kâzerûniyye) zaviye in Bursa is the best-known center of this order. Şemseddin Müeyyed Çelebi, the grandfather of Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi, was also one of the Kâzerûniyye sheikhs, and Hüsameddin mentions him too as "famous as Ebû İshak Kâzerûnî." It is not clear whether "Küpeli Müeyyed Çelebi" and Şemseddin Müeyyed Çelebi are the same person; if they are, the Küpelizâdes and the Müeyyedzâdes would be related families.
Support for Cem Sultan and the Return to Amasya
Ahmed Çelebi's removal from the kadılık of Edirne in 888 coincides with the purge of those seen as close to Cem Sultan in the early years of Bayezid II's reign. Grand Vizier İshak Pasha too withdrew from office in the summer of 888 [1483]. In the entry on Defterdar Gümüşlüzâde Ahmed Bey, Hüsameddin also relates that in 889 İshak Pasha, Hızır Pasha's son Mehmed Pasha, and other men of Amasya were removed from office on the same charge. In the same period Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi also returned to Amasya, in Ramadan 888 [October 1483]. Ahmed Çelebi too was sent to Amasya in 889 and spent his last years in his home town.
No information was found in a source other than Hüsameddin about Ahmed Çelebi himself.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 125. amasya.bel.tr
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları (e-book), entry "Abdülmecîd-Mecdeddîn Çelebi" (with citations from Taşköprülüzâde's eş-Şakâ'ik and Mehmed Süreyya's Sicill-i Osmânî).
Books
- Şerafettin Turan and others, "Kemalpaşazâde", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 25.
- Hasan Aksoy, "Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman Efendi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 31, p. 483-485.
- Ş. Tufan Buzpınar, "Nakîbüleşraf", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 32, 2006, p. 322-324.
- "İshak Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 22, 2000, p. 537-538.